Following the Roman exodus in 410 AD, Britain disintegrated into a number of statelets at war with each other.
In the 5th century, pagan Germanic Angles, Saxons and Jutes invaded and settled, gradually expelling respectively enslaving
the Celtic and partially Christian British population from what was to become England.
In the 6th and 7th centuries the Anglo-Saxons converted to Catholic Christianity. The Heptarchy (seven Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms,
loosely federated under a Bretwalda (high king) emerged : East Anglia, Essex, Kent, Mercia, Northumbria, Sussex, Wessex.
Viking invasions resulted in the establishment of the Danelaw and the Viking Kingdom of York. In the late 9th and early
10th century, Wessex conquered the Danelaw and York, and unified England (954).
Danish invasions resulted in temporary Danish rule (1013-1042). In 1066, England fell to Norman invaders. The Normans
introduced feudalism; the Norman elite continued to speak Norman French for several centuries. While the
Duchy of Normandy was lost in 1204, the Kings of England (as Dukes of
Normandy) held on to the Channel Islands (Guernsey, Jersey).
In 1283 Wales was conquered. It remained a separate administrative entity until annexed into England in 1535-1542.
Under Henry VIII, the Church of England was separated from Rome; subsequentially, reforms turned it into a Protestant church.
A minority remained Catholic; Protestant radicals, dissatisfied with an Anglican Church which in their view was not reformed
thoroughly enough, established a number of sects collectively referred to as the Dissenters.
After the death of Queen Elizabeth I. (1603), monarchy and parliament held up different political visions. The conflict over
the rights of king and parliament culminated in the English Civil War (1642-1651), the Stuart Restoration 1660 and the Glorious
Revolution 1688. Scotland, since 1603, was in dynastic union with England; in 1707 the Scottish parliament dissolved itself
and placed Scotland under the authority of the London parliament, thus creating the United Kingdom of Great Britain.

T.G. Smollett, The History of England from the Revolution of 1688 to the Death of George II.,
vol.1 1836,
vol.2 1805,
vol.3 1805,
vol.4 1811,
vol.5 1811,
vol.6 1805, GB
J.A. Froude, History of England: from the fall of Wolsey to the death of Elizabeth
vol.4 1866,
vol.12 1870, GB

J. Chambers, Biographical illustrations of Worcestershire: including lives of persons, natives or residents
eminent either for piety or talent: to which is added, a list of living authors of the country
single vol., 1820, GB

François Bedarida, A Social History of England 1851-1990, tral. from the French (1976) London : Routledge 1991 KMLA Lib. Call Sign 942.081 B399s
J.R.H. Moorman, A History of the Church in England, Harrisburg : Moorhouse (1963) 1980 [G]